In the solvent extraction of oil seed materials, such as soybean, cottonseed, sunflower seed, rapeseed, peanut and the like with a ternary solvent system such as hexane/alcohol and water, one of the difficulties encountered has been solvent recovery from the oil-bearing miscella. In the past, when insufficient hydrocarbon solvent was used, an oil residue containing excess water caused the phosphatides (lecithin) to become viscous, and to precipitate out of the liquid phase prematurely, thereby causing probems in the liquid lines of the process system.